[b][color=a187be]Shinjiro Karasawa[/color][/b]

Summer vacation was in full swing.

[color=a187be][i]I'm gonna shove the next word problem I see down someone's throat.[/i][/color]

Of course, in Academy City, that usually meant it was anything but. Even if he was someone who could appreciate the idea of staying in his air-conditioned domicile and out of the August heat all day, He would have wanted to spend it relaxing. Playing games, sleeping, talking with his friends back home— The other one, of course.

Not with himself mired in the infamous Academy City Summer Homework. While the quality of education was inarguably higher here than anywhere else in the world, Karasawa was adamant in his assertions to the rest of the Student Council that back in America, the long summer break model with no homework was much more forgiving to those who actually wanted to do other things with their free time.

And no matter how much the Veep and her smug grins tried to argue that keeping the material fresh was more conducive to their academic performances, he wasn't budging on the issue.

At all.

Ever.

[color=a187be][i]So she'll keep busting my balls about it every group study session, no matter how lucky she knows she is that I don't set her place on fire.[/i][/color]

But, thankfully, Noriaki North High's hothead of a Student Council Secretary was much more in control of his abilities than he usually let on. The Level 3's Burning Blood had itself ensured that, because it had taken the bureaucracy of Academy City a long time to renovate his apartment, floor, and complex with heat-resistant and flame-retardant material. Honestly, it was even long after they were necessary, but the shit was pretty plush all the same.

Still, despite all of his misgivings with his senpai and the rarefied air of elegance that surrounded her and her station as his direct superior, he nonetheless showed up to these sessions without fail.

He knew better, given that he hated doing them on his own so much, and to give credit where it was totally due, she was one helluva teacher.

It was after one such session, well past evening and into night, that the purple man trudged his way home. As was customary, he could still taste the salinity and savory umami of miso broth upon his lips, freshly placed by the courtesy of Woodles Noodles. A favorite pit stop of his, he would often savor the lingering aroma and taste on his tongue as far as he could, robust and comforting, which usually ended up being all the way home. 

But tonight was different. 

It started with a noise. A noise that, despite the classically urban hustle and bustle of Academy City forming the distinctly "citylike" din that he was so accustomed to, rang out sharp and clear.

It wasn't a noise that belonged. It didn't belong at all.

And if something didn't belong that caught his interest, he was going to investigate— Though the horrible smell that soon hit his nostrils certainly threatened to dissuade him. He once chased a man through Tokiwadai itself; a little raw sewage...

[color=a187be][i]uuurrrk.[/i][/color]

A little testing of the gag reflex wouldn't stop him.

[color=a187be]"..."[/color]

However.

In that low blue light of the moon, orange of the neon, and the white of the flashlight carried by the girl with the camera he had drawn up towards, it was illuminated.

He tasted something he thought might be bile, and could feel that heat he was so often lauded for leaving his skin, along with most of its color.

Shinjiro Karasawa, the infamous "delinquent" of Noriaki North High's student council, had never seen a corpse.

He was tough.

He was hard.

He was more than enough to take on anything that breathed, at least in his own mind.

He was undeniably a rugged and rough character, having grown up with the brashness of New York, New York running through his veins.

[color=a187be]"What..."[/color]

But none of that mattered. None of that shit mattered at all.

Hey, quit busting his... That girl was...

He fumbled, searching for words as his mind locked up.

[color=a187be]"...the Hell?"[/color]

It was an empty question in practice. He couldn't have expected either of the people who had found the cadaver before him to know, but a mind in distress wants answers.

The woman, a foreigner, was bloodlessly missing an arm. Her shins were twisted almost opposite of their natural orientation.

Her arm that was still attached was reached out.

For help.

For a savior.

She was running from something.

[color=a187be]"Where the [i]fuck[/i] is Judgement?"[/color]

Breathless fear lead to breathless anger, as it so often did.

[color=a187be]"If you don't call 'em, [i]I will[/i]. This is..."[/color]

He swallowed thickly in the middle of the words he growled to the man in the hoodie. Hoped that wasn't his noodles again.

[color=a187be]"This is a [i]murder[/i]."[/color]

[@NarayanK][@GreenGoat]